Dear Eds, show us your Balls and back the strikes

Tomorrow about 2 million public sector workers will go on strike. The disruption will could mean real difficulty for working parents, out patients, people trying to return to the country and more. I myself have an outpatient appointment that was booked weeks ago and I don’t yet know if it will be affected. But it’s a small price to pay compared to the recklessness that this government is treating the pension schemes of millions of public sector workers.

The rhetoric since the weekend from the government has been provocative and agreesive. Gove branding teachers militant is just one example of many. They simply aren’t prepared to talk reasonably any more. And when communications break down workers are left with little option but to strike.

But their arguemnts about pension reform are as spurious as their unwarranted attacks on teachers. Taking the pension scheme I know most about the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), the government’s case for reform simply doesn’t stack up.

The LGPS is managed locally by pension committees at Local Councils. The only people who qualify for pensions payments from Camden’s scheme are Camden’s former employees. Elected represetatives of each authority with expert advisers manage very large sums of money to ensure the current and future viability of the schemes for it’s members. The LGPS is stable now and for the future.

Over three years though the government wants to increase staff contributions from 6.6% to 9.8% for every employee. There are no plans for the extra revenue raised to be invested in the future viability of the scheme. This increase amounts to nothing more than an additional tax of hundreds of pounds per year for local government officers up and down the country. Many of whom fall in to the lowest paid workers in the country.

The increase in contributions runs the real risk of mass opt outs from the scheme. The cross party, but Tory controlled Local Government Association agrees. They believe that the risk of opt outs could undermine the future viability of the scheme – the less people are paying in, the less affordable future pensions payments are. Such a reckless approach runs the very real risk of greater demands on taxpayers in future of bailing out a failing pension fund because the very actions this government is taking will destabilise it so much.

Viewed through that lens it starts to look less like a move aimed at affordability and sustainability or even deficit reduction and more like an ideologically driven move to undermine the attractiveness of the public sector as an employer. We’ve been here before of course. The Thatcher and Major governments chipped away at terms and conditions of public sector employees to deter people going in to public service as a career. When Labour won the 1997 general election schools and hospitals and local councils were on their knees. This attack on public sector pensions is just one part of what is becoming a sustained assault on the public sector.

The attacks are sustained and thorough because the Tories don’t believe in state provided public services and much less any semblance of universality. David Cameron has said so. Repeatedly. The Lib Dems are powerless to stop them.

Supporting the strikes isn’t just about a fight for low paid workers to keep hold of more of their salary or a reaction to the appalling way the government has handled what it laughably calls negotiation.

No, supporting the strikes should be essential as a signal that we, the whole Labour movement, continue to support strong, high quality public services delivered on the basis of need, not ability to pay.